Blog 333 – 07.05.2016

(Excerpt from Emily – The Little Girl Who Sang Her Song To Anyone Who Came Along)

Episode 5

For some years it had been my goal to be able to say I had been in all fifty of the United States of America. Mark Twain often said he thought it good practice to keep a few vices as bargaining chips with God. In the event one was deathly ill or in some particular trouble it might be handy to promise God you would give up a particular vice for His favor in the matter. Twain joked he was afraid to run out of vices. I do not think Emily made her “exit stage right” because she ran out of vices but because she, at least her higher self planned it that way, because she wanted a big ending and to say good-bye to all her friends and family in a big way.
I still needed to visit three states to achieve my goal of all fifty when I landed a traveling inspection job. My first assignment was in Detroit, Michigan where I had lived as a small boy but had no recollection of that time. For a year or so I had kept a screen saver on my computer of a couple of black bears and the snow covered mountains of Alaska in the background. I visualized driving to Alaska in my Jeep Wrangler. After a couple of months in Detroit the assignment ending and at first my company talked of another assignment in Michigan or perhaps Kentucky. Then out of the blue, I love that expression, the Chief Inspector on the Detroit job, said, “How would you like to go to Alaska?”
Well, I said sure and accepted this gift with gratitude. So I drove from Detroit, Michigan to Kenai, Alaska in early June. It took seven full days of driving. It was the adventure of a lifetime and I picked up two of my missing three states along the way, Idaho and Oregon, leaving Alaska the fiftieth state for last.When I shared my trip with Emily over the phone she was thrilled for me. Over the years we had taken several long road trips together and she knew how much I loved them. In Alaska I saw black bears in the wild, moose, elk, and watched salmon fishing as I got there just in time to witness the salmon running upstream.
I had only been in Alaska a short while when Emily called to let me know she was in the hospital having some tests run. Toby, the great love of her life with whom she shared the last six months of her life, was with her. She had experienced some severe pain and thinking it was appendicitis Toby took her to the emergency room of a nearby hospital and they told her it was not and they hospitalized her to run some tests. She was given some medication for the pain so she sounded upbeat. That was her default setting, my angel Emily.
The reports showed that Emily had a tumor on her liver so they did a biopsy and it was found to be malignant so they planned a course of treatment and sent Emily home. Things grew worse fast and Monday morning Emily was back in the hospital and I had the saddest call of my life. Just a few days before she had been ready to fight, positive she could beat this thing, and now I was hearing the saddest words a parent can ever hear, “Daddy, I’m not going to make it.”

When Emily was three, a magical time in her life, she was playing in her room, jumping on her bed. And when she jumped off she landed face first on a plastic toy that cut her upper lip. I rushed her to the emergency room at the little hospital where she was born and they strapped her arms down in a sort of pappose thing to keep her from moving as they stitched her lip. I watched helpless as my little girl was so scared. I relived that memory as her words echoed in my hurting heart, “Daddy, I’m not going to make.” She asked me to come but I knew I could not watch my daughter die and I so arranged for her mother, Sandra, and youngest brother, Ben, to fly from Austin, Texas to be with her those last few days of her life. I also paid gas and hotel expenses for her other mother, my wife Linda, to drive up from Houston, Texas to be with her. I knew these two women and Ben could do more for her than I could. I knew many would not understand my not being there but Emily did and that was all that mattered. On the day my darling girl took her leave of this life I drove from Kenai, Alaska to Homer, Alaska. As my Emily flew Home I drove to Homer. There I thought of Emily and how grateful I was for the thirty two years I got to be her dad.
One of the mixed CD’s that Emily had sent me was a great comfort to me as I grieved the loss of my baby girl. In particular a song by the Indigo Girls that could not have been more appropriated. Even the beginning ooh, ooh, oohs which also began each chorus were like my own wail of mourning for my Emily. I believe the title of the song is Better Off For All that We Let In. I have probably listened to it a thousand times and have memorized the words:
Ooh, ooh, ooh.

“Dust in our eyes
Our own boots kicked up
Heart sick we nurse
Along the way
We picked up.

You may not see it
When it’s sticking to your skin
But we’re better off
For all that we let in.

We’ve lost friends and loved ones
Much too young,
With so much promise
And work left undone.

And all that guides us
Is a single center line
And the brutal crossing over
When it’s time.

Ooh, ooh, ooh,
Well, I don’t know where it all
began, and I don’t know where it
all will end.
We’re better off
For all that we let it in.

One day those toughies
Will be withered up and bent
The father, son, the holy warriors
And the President.

Glory days of put up dukes
For all the world to see
Beaten into submission
In the name of the free.

We’re in an evolution
I have heard it said
And everyone’s so busy now
But do we move ahead.

Planets hurling
And atoms splitting
And a sweater for your love
You sit there knitting.

Ooh, ooh, ooh,
Well, I don’t know where it all
began, and I don’t know where
it all will end.
We’re better off
For all that we let in.

See those crosses
On the side of the road
Tied with ribbons
In the median
They make me grateful
I can go this mile
Lay me down at night
And wake me up awhile.

Kare writes a poem
( I insert Em for Kare)
And she sticks it on my trunk,
“We don’t believe in war
And we don’t believe in junk.”

(The song as sung by the Indigo
Girls may say “we don’t believe in
luck” but I know that Em not only
did not believe in war but that she
did believe everyone and every
thing has value or as the little girl
said, “God don’t make junk.”  So
I take a little poetic license when
I sing the song. Back to the lyrics.)

The birds were calling super
What were they’re saying
As the gate blew open
The tops of the trees were
swaying.

I pass the cemetery
Walk my dog down there.
I read the names in stone
And I say a silent prayer.

When I get home you’re cooking
Supper on the stove
And the greatest gift of life
Is to know love.

Ooh, ooh, ooh,
Well, I don’t know where it all
began, and I don’t know where it
all will end.
We’re better off
For all that we let in.

I have included the entire lyrics of the song with the hope it will encourage those reading this book to not only seek out Emily’s songs that she sang in this life but those that shaped her life and mine and all who were fortunate enough to “let her in.”

Your fellow traveler, speaker, writer, singer/song writer but most importantly
Emily’s Dad
David White